Am I pregnant? Nope.
Am I TTC yet? Nope.
Am I already buying things for my next pregnancy and packing them in my hospital bag?
Um...yes, yes I am!
To make myself seem a little less crazy, there's a reason why I'm doing it.
Up popped on my facebook the most perfect thing for my next birth. I saw it and bam. I knew I had to have it. It would be more than an adorable, versatile labor and postpartum gown, it would be my battle outfit, a suit of armor. It would help me to avoid the pitfalls of last time that lead to an extremely rough, and frankly traumatizing birthing experience.
You see, I went into that birth feeling confident. When I got in to the hospital, I asked for the induction I had last time. It was rocky, with a three hour pushing time, but it was ideal with no problems (other than a broken tailbone.) But when I asked for it, I was rejected. This other midwife told me that the way I wanted to have it done was a way she wasn't good at and had a low success rate with. She pushed and pushed for the way I had researched about, all which said could have ill effects and wasn't actually meant for labor. There were no safe dosage for labor as it wasn't meant for labor. But she pushed, she said if I didn't I'd definitely need pitocin and that's so much rougher. She scared me into thinking that her way was the less painful way and if I didn't do it that way, I'd be in for a rough time. She told me how pitocin can lead to c-sections. More fear. So I relented.
My body did not take well to her method. It reacted violently. It was so much worse than my labor with my first. I went out of my mind. Where was the midwife? At home in bed. When the nurse called to tell her how horrible of a time I was having and how I seemed to be reacting badly to the induction, she just granted pain meds - something she knew I didn't want and hadn't needed with my daughter. I hadn't wanted it, but I was so scared that there was something really wrong to be causing this pain that I relented. It did nothing for the pain, but it made me super dizzy and drunk feeling - further limiting my capability to communicate.
She didn't come check me first, nor did she come check me when my water broke. She also didn't come check me when the nurse repeatedly caught me pushing on my own, even though they kept chiding me that I was only at 2 cm and I was going to hurt myself. (I knew better. I had felt myself dilate, had felt his head fall into the birth canal. He was coming on his own, super fast, and the "pain meds" they gave me made me unable to communicate with anyone.)
I went from barely a 1 CM dilated to fully dilated, my water breaking and the baby coming out all within 2 hours. All in horrible, writhing pain with no midwife to support me and me completely cut out from anything outside of my own body. Unable to communicate from the pain, no breaks from the double contractions that would come, begin to calm down just to ram back up before the last started.
All of this to say, his birth was ruled by fear. It went from bad to worse. After it happened, I was terrified to get pregnant again. For months I was convinced that I could never do it again. With Katie, I was fine, I never feared having to do it again. I was petrified with Will.
This time, I refuse to allow fear to come into my birthing experience. My whole pregnancy is going to be about preparing and concurring my demons. I get so full of anxiety in pregnancy, and this time I'm going to help get control of it. I worked on it with Will and it helped, but this time I'm going to do more.
So this is my labor gown, my battle gear.
It says Birth Without Fear (which is a page I've been following), and is perfect for my goals. It also has an awesome sparkling unicorn.
This is the first thing I bought for pregnancy #4:
